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Getting a sense of the missing Ronnie Gibbons

When I first wrote about Ronnie Gibbons in 1996, I not only wanted to tell the story of a mysterious disappearance but also try to give readers an idea of just who Ronnie was. I was starting from square one,

Getting a sense of the missing Ronnie Gibbons

When I first wrote about Ronnie Gibbons in 1996, I not only wanted to tell the story of a mysterious disappearance but also try to give readers an idea of just who Ronnie was.

I was starting from square one, since Joseph "Ronnie" Gibbons was no one whom I'd ever met or, as of a few weeks before, even heard of. And the police did not know about his early connections to the Brink's robbery, so no one in those ranks could provide much help. I remember talking to federal authorities in 1996, and learning that they were as surprised as I that a new character had entered into the Brink's saga.

Looking back at a short profile I wrote in 1996, I realize that I did catch some of Ronnie's personality - in particular his eccentricities, which were plentiful. The headline of the story about Ronnie, in fact, proclaimed: "Ex-pugilist was short of cash; had reputation as an eccentric."

As I would later learn, Ronnie's circle of friends was large, including some of the cast of the FX series Rescue Me. He knew the cast through his friend, Terry Quinn, a New York City firefighter who was a consultant to the show. Through the years I would talk to many more of those friends - and more of Ronnie's relatives - and the humorous anecdotes about Ronnie would pile up, many of them now on errant scraps of notebook paper crammed into my files.

To this day, however, one of my favorite stories about Ronnie appeared in the opening paragraphs of the short 1996 profile of the missing boxer.

Here are the story's first few paragraphs:

When Joseph "Ronnie" Gibbons came back to the boxing ring in 1993 after a 13-year retirement, he was honest about his motivation.

"I'm coming back for the money," Gibbons, then 40, told the Irish Echo newspaper, published in the United States. "If I make great money, I'll give it dignity and put it to noble use."

Friends of Gibbons weren't surprised. Gibbons, an Irishman who joked that he was conceived in Dublin andborn in Liverpool, England, was often looking for financial assistance.Drinking at a New York City bar in November 1994, he jotted a note to another man at the establishment:"Don't tell no one, but could you please lend me $500 smackers until Christmas. Loads of people told me you are loaded with no responsibilities.

"I will be forever indebted to you if I don't pay you back by Christmas," Gibbons wrote on the note, which was retained by Gibbons.

That note - and that story - were among the memories of Ronnie that Terry Quinn passed onto me. Ronnie retrieved the note - he did not get the "$500 smackers" - and it was among papers of his that Quinn shared with me.

Even to this day, after the thousands of words I've written about Ronnie and dozens of stories I've been told about him, I still enjoy that tale of him at a bar, trying to cajole and charm a complete stranger into a loan.

And the stories I've heard are so numerous, that, as I've said before, I feel as if I did know Ronnie. I find myself often writing these blogs using his first name - as I have here - only to change the reference to his last name as I edit.

In 1996, even after this short profile of him, he was still largely an unknown to me. And, in the coming months, his colorful personality would intrigue me - and the stories I would hear would entertain me - but my key focus then was on his connections to the Brink's robbery and why, as I felt sure even without a discovery of his body, those had led to his death.

(As a footnote, the photo here with Ronnie and Joe Frazier was shared with me by his family in 1996.)

(To read the initial coverage of the discovery of Ronnie Gibbons' remains, click here. To subscribe to notifications of this continuing narrative blog, click here. To read past installments, click here. Notifications will also be sent via my Twitter account@gcraig1. )

Public safety watchdog reporter:
Gary Craig is a member of the Democrat and Chronicle’s Watchdog team, and focuses on public safety and criminal justice. He has worked at Rochester newspapers since 1990, covering City Hall, politics and federal courts before joining the newspaper’s investigative team. He has won state and national investigative writing awards. He is married with two daughters.&nbsp;